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Yeah, they are awesome. Wagons with the M sports package are pretty rare, I have only seen one in Toronto in Topaz Blue Metallic, the cousin of my 540i/6. Even has the Style 66's - which I am looking for a good set if anyone has some for sale...

That said changing the bumpers and trim is easy, just $$$ if you go OEM. The above 23 examples also have M5 mirrors if I'm not mistaken, pretty sure all Tourings even with M sports package came with dumbo ears.

Yeah, they are awesome. Wagons with the M sports package are pretty rare, I have only seen one in Toronto in Topaz Blue Metallic, the cousin of my 540i/6. Even has the Style 66's - which I am looking for a good set if anyone has some for sale...

That said changing the bumpers and trim is easy, just $$$ if you go OEM. The above 23 examples also have M5 mirrors if I'm not mistaken, pretty sure all Tourings even with M sports package came with dumbo ears.

I think you were looking at my car! (now mine anyways!)...
Owner kept the rims, and car how has M5 driveline/6spd.

So, more info on the burning smell. I had a friend in the car at the time so it was good to get a second opinion. He was sure it was coolant that he was smelling. Even before it was really bad he could smell it faintly. To be honest my nose for certain types of automotive fluids either burning or not is pretty newbish, so my initial description of the 'electrical burning' is likely incorrect.

Here's what I did to 'break it' this time. From a slow roll pinned it to 7k RPM in first gear. Slowed, then smoke started entering the cabin on the passenger side primarily. Stopped the car with the engine on and rolled down the windows.

My friend thought it might be the heater core that was leaking. He's not a BMW guy but it's a possibility just a PITA to get at and fix. I'm not familiar with heater core failures so I need to read up on that.

My other other thought was the valley pan gasket having a minor leak that is under high RPM load and pressure opens up and squirts coolant out somewhere. Is that possible? It was definitely the higher RPMs that cause this situation to arrive. Under normal driving conditions this doesn't happen, although there is a faint odor here and there.

I don't think it would be heater core if the heat is turned down or off but you are prolly in the correct area. There is a heater hose that I have replaced in the past that is known problem on the E39 540 to develope a pin hole leak at one of the bends, it is located at the back of the engine/passenger side. If I recall correctly it connects to the right side coolant manifold at the rear of the engine and runs around and down to the heater auxilary pump on the left shock tower.

Get the car hot then open the hood and check the rear heater hoses for dampness, the pin hole maybe just starting and will spray a fine mist that is barely noticible. It is normally at the top bend in the hose that this pin hole occurs.

^^^There is NO coolant hoses on the right (passenger) side of the E39. All are on the left side, running to about half way on the firewall, so check left side and middle of engine bay.

You're right, no hoses on the right side of the E39 but I'm refering to the heater hoses just to the right of and under the CCV and connected to the coolant manifold that bridges both banks of the engine.

I forgot to mention that the engine cover will have to be removed to see the hoses.

A couple days ago when I was with a friend who was giving his opinion on the smell, shortly after I went hard on the accelerator, the battery light came on. I didn't mention that part because I thought it was just a dead battery rearing it's ugly head. The car seemed fine so a couple minutes later I turned off the engine, then tried to start - nothing but click click click. Battery juiced. Luckily we got a jump within minutes of me pulling over.

5 minutes later, the car goes into limp mode - all the dash lights come on and trans. failsafe. Got it towed home, had NAPA check the battery. It did have one bad cell so I bought a new one. Take it for a 20k test drive with new battery, things seem to be working well. During this time I can faintly smell burning plastic once the engine is up to speed, so I am driving normally and not any heavy acceleration since I don't want to induce the smoke again.

Later in the day I go for another drive, long story short after 60km the battery light comes on - then 5 minutes after that it went into limp mode. Luckily I was travelling at 80km which was enough to keep the car working, but when I stopped in town the gas pedal was no longer operational. I limped into a parking lot then called for a pickup.

After charging the battery again I got the car home. There is a whirring noise from the alternator area now, which was not present before, as well as the burning plastic smell - identical. With the car running at idle and 1500-2000 RPM the voltage was at 11-11.1. Not enough juice, alternator dead. Putting a screwdriver to my ear it sounded like clack-clack-clack in time with the engine.

So over the last couple weeks I have been slowly frying the alternator. I know of four instances where it was bad enough to bring smoke into the cabin, the first time I was on the test drive with the car, and the last when it completely died and stop charging the battery.

The PO actually just had the alternator replaced by BMW before I bought the car, so I'm hoping they might honor the 1 year warranty on it.

Yeah, there is not much to see on the outside. I am really curious as to what it looks like on the inside of mine. When I figure out how I am getting my replacement I might take a peek inside and get a look.

Here are some reference shots of the innards of a similar unit. There is a lot of plastic in there as it turns out.

I had my watter cooled alternator rebuilt 4 years ago locally here in Markham and "knock on wood" it's still doing fine. The shop told me the cause of the failure was the battery so I replace it as well.

They seem to go hand in hand. The battery in the car when I got it was 4 years old, and when I took it to NAPA for a load test they told me one of the cells was only showing 330CCA, so it was bad. New one now, just need a new alt and I should be golden.